Murd House Kaliningrad - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

Honey, I’m Home!

16 January 2024 ~ Honey House Kaliningrad is the Bees Knees

Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow wrote the lyrics, and the Beatles commercialised it. It was called a Taste of Honey, and the memorable refrain went, “A taste of honey / A taste much sweeter than wine.”

Frank Sinatra got it right when he sang, “You can drink the water, but I will drink the wine.”

OK, so no contest between wine and honey and wine and water, but water is good for washing wine glasses and honey is delicious and, they say, extremely good for you, especially when it is not compared with wine but used as one of the main ingredients in the preparation of mead.

Honey House Kaliningrad

The Murd House, not to be confused with the English ‘Murder House’, roll out Vincent Price, is an excessively large, palatial and unmissably bright yellow-coloured mansion of a place, which, in spite of its flamboyance, is oddly concealed along an early twentieth century street in an erstwhile suburb of the East Prussian city of Königsberg.

There was a time that as big and as bright as the building is, it still achieved relative anonymity, due to its partly concealed location. For example, a mid-rise block of flats makes it virtually invisible to cars passing by on the main drag. Thankfully, about three years ago, some bright spark came up with the idea of pinning a large sign on a nearby fence with ‘Murd House’ written on it and an arrow pointing in the right direction, an initiative one hopes that has gone some way towards alleviating comparative obscurity.

In Russian the word ‘Murd’ means honey (There you are, you see, there is a connection!) In English, ‘Murd House’ becomes Honey House or the House of Honey.

Honey House Kaliningrad

Whilst in itself vast, the Baroque pastiche that is the Honey House would dwarf a good sized supermarket, and whilst I have no idea what goes on in the majority of the building, I do know, as I have used it often, that secreted at a corner of this extraordinary building sits one of the best stocked honey shops in Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad’s central market is hard to beat for almost everything, and that includes honey. It has a spacious and brand-spanking-new food hall that is exclusively given over to many different types of honey, sold in many different sized tubs. But the Honey House’s diminutive size is nothing if not deceptive. This small shop stocks an unbelievably exciting range of honey. Consider this, if you will: Acacia Honey, Mountain Honey, Yellow Sweet Clover Honey, several varieties of Buckwheat Honey. And these are just a small sample of the different kinds of honey offered by the Honey House, either scooped into tubs at your behest or sold in prepacked jars. How do those clever bees manage it!

The products purveyed by the Honey House are not confined to different flavoured honey, it also sells chocolate, confectionary, breakfast cereals, honey straws, biscuits, cosmetics and a whole lot more, all rich in the magic versatility of one of the healthiest natural substances known to man, honey.

Not that alcohol holds any interest to me, I’m strictly sarsaparilla, but the Honey House even purveys an alcohol-infused beverage simply known as Honey Drink, which to you and me is mead. Have I tried it? Have I ever put on a pair of shoes?

Why don’t you put on yours and buzz off down to the Honey House.

The Honey House
The House of Honey/Honey House/Murd House (take your pick) began life in 2000, the objective being to popularise beekeeping in the Kaliningrad region. Initially, the mainstay of the enterprise was to provide beekeeping farms with equipment, medications and breeding material.

Today, the Honey House is a bio-shop, which means that it only sells natural products. Thus, products bearing the ‘Slavyansky Medovar’ trademark guarantee consistently high production standards and tasty food from natural ingredients.

Also available from the Honey House:
Bee-keeping equipment
Medications for bee keeping
Bee-keeping clothing
Hives and components

and:

Fragrances for candles
Candle-making moulds
Candle extinguishers

The main thing:

House of Honey
Ulitsa Nekrasova
18А, Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad Oblast, 236016

Tel: 8 (401) 236-56-06

Website: https://dommeda39.ru/

Opening hours:
Mon to Sat 10am to 7pm